If you’ve never heard of Woot.Com, then consider yourself lucky. Woot is a Dallas-area based wholesaler that pioneered the ‘deal a day’ internet business model. Their slogan is “One Day, One Deal” for a reason. At midnight central time every day, they put up one item that’s been substantially discounted. Then you can buy up to 3 of them until midnight the next night, or until they sell out - whichever happens first.

As you can imagine, it’s fairly addictive. Some of what they offer are incredibly cheap and seemingly worthwhile you can’t help but order several of whatever it is.

Then there are the woot-off’s. Woot-offs are when they put an item up at an even better discount, for a limited amount of time - probably because they are in short supply. A lot of the time it’s something they had up earlier, and sometimes it’s brand new stuff.

Woot-offs are pretty awesome. I love them, my bank account does not. Especially if you’re on twitter, and decide to follow Woot. And then you turn on device updates, so you get an SMS/IM when there’s a new item. And twitter actually doesn’t break that day.

What happens?

You end up with a lot of stuff you probably didn’t need, but now you can’t live without.

Like what, you may ask. Well, lemme show you what I bought today. I’m such a sucker.

See this? It’s a shower curtain. But not just any ordinary shower curtain, it is the greatest one in the world. It features show postings for events that took place at the infamous CBGB’s night club. It is technically impossible to get one any better. Guinness Book of World Records declared it the greats curtain ever¹. And soon, it will be mine - I just ordered it. Order yourself one too over at Interpunk.Com

1. Well, they didn’t really certify it [↩]

It’s time for the Pavleck.Com Weekend edition. A lot is going on and I’ll make you privy to it all!

First up, it’s that time once again - the St. Paul Art Crawl kicks off tonight at 6pm. I’ll be walking around my building checking out (and buying) some of the art the incredibly talented people in Twin Town can put together - will I see you there? I’m really hoping to!
See if you can find me or my work called “All my exes live on canvas” (A play on an old country song). It may or may not be there. The fun is figuring it out!

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So after using my 3G 20G iPod for the past 3 years, I decided I needed a new one - so I went and got it.

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Last night it stormed like crazy in the Twin Cities. Around 11pm it finally hit were we live. I was laying in our large comfy bed, watching the lightning outside, listening to the rain hitting the windows and came to the realization - maybe something bad happening doesn’t always have to follow good things happening. It felt good. Looking out and watching the blurred loglo of America in front of me - the crimson red sign of UBS, the stoic yellow of Wells Fargo, the patriotic Red white and blue of Bremer bank - it all seemed to calming.

Anyway, I’m leaving work early today because I have to get a new desk. I have a desk, it was given to me, but it’s not ‘my‘ desk. It doesn’t feel like me. A desk is almost a religious thing to a geek - we spend a lot of time there, it’s the focal point of our career and our hobbies - it’s our personality. The desk I was given is of steel and glass - quite beautiful to look at, that’s for sure - but it’s not me. It’s all show, no go. I’m going to Ikea, and I bet I can find something there for me.

Then, we have to go to Swank to pick up this mod 70s dresser we bought the other day - they sold to new owners so a lot of the stock is liquidated - all the accessories were 50% off. The dresser, which we sorely need, wasn’t included in the discount - but we bought a few other things there and talked him into letting us have it for $55 less then it had on the ticket - so all in all that was a cool deal.

So after a new dresser, then a new desk, we can finish unpacking and get rid of the boxes.

And be truly, home.

Sorry I haven’t written much - the Fringe Fest started on the 3rd and I had to errrr  a friend had to work on directing his play. It was fun. A helluva lot of fun. Next year will be even better!

Ha ha! I won it! I won the auction for a 1979 Gottlieb Buck Rogers pinball playfield! He gives it a 9.5 out of a 10 in regards to shape, just a few things missing but other then that it’s almost brand new - just needs a couple parts, some polish, and then it’s coffee table time! I’m hoping to do it a bit cleaner then the person who wrote the HOW-TO; my woodworking skills aren’t great at all, but I think I can pull off a few things to make this table more refined and include things like miter joints. I’ll also need to work on a proper circuit to supply power to it - I’m thinking of using one of the rechargeable 18 volt batteries used in my Ryobi system + an additional charger. I figure I can use a DC-DC step down to convert from 18V to the ~6.3V the lights need, plus what ever additional power is needed to compensate for resistance. I can gut the charger, connecting inline to the battery and that way it can just charge the battery, or charge the battery while powering the lights, or just power the lights. Not bad for a $40 investment, $20 for the charger, $20 for the battery. Plus, this battery is a standard Ryobi uses so I can count on them being available for quite some time. Anyway, I’m stoked! I’m also hoping (Though not real sure I will) that I also win this auction, which is for another pinball playfield - this time for a 1978 Bally Playboy machine. It’s not in perfect shape, but it’ll clean up real well. If I get good enough at this, maybe I’ll try to sell them. I figure at most $250 for the parts, and it should easily sell for $500+, call it art and I can go as high as $800 no sweat. And $250 would be the max, a lot of the playfields go for only $50 or so, it’s just a tight market suddenly.

Anyway, pics of the new Buck Rogers playfield after the jump.

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So today we signed our lease for out beautiful new loft at the rossmor. I was looking around online, and due to who was living there before it’s already registered with the St. Paul Art Crawl - saves me money! Though really, I’ll probably just sit outside my door and watch the people walk by. Also, I’m tired of my lame queen bed, so we went out and bought a brand new king sized Select Comfort bed! Oi, it is unbelievably comfortable - and at $3000 after all is said and done, it damn well better.

So this weekend will be all about packing. The bed will be delivered to the new place on August 2nd, and we’ll technically be living in 2 places for all of August. And if anyone has been keeping track, yes - I’ve spent roughly $8500 in the last 30 days on things that aren’t bill related. I think I’m just about done though, I have about all I need

Indeed, it is now mine, and it would be a deal at twice the price! Wii pics coming, but I’m to tired, friggin wisdom tooth got pulled yesterday and I’m still all blah =\

Who’d a thunk a few words about psychos could net ya some cash?

Today I’ve begun my year long journey of chronicling everything I purchase that’s not consumable. That means the only thing I don’t photography is food, smokes, soda, etc. Though I may change my mind on that too.

First up:

Echo Used CDs and DVDs. Purchased Eels - Souljacker, The Sugar Cubes - Lifes to Good, Terminator 2: Extreme Edition, The Terminator, Carmen Electra, and 10 incense sticks. Purchase total: $47

Second stop:

Target. Purchased RISK ‘vintage’ edition, Night Guard mouth guard to help mishka stop grinding her teeth, and a generic multi-game Chess/Checkers/Backgammon game I’m going to use for a project I have.

Final stop today:

Unique Thrift Store. This is a huge one, 3 bags full.

• Many different articles of clothing for Mishka, mainly to be used as fabric for a project she has
• 4 records - Bob Dylan - Saved,  Pink Floyd - The Wall,  Billy Joel - The Stranger and one band called Communards
• 3 hand blown glass bowls for a project
• A gaudy necklace for Mishka for the geek prom
• An antique trophy which reads “Allan Jabu - First Place - Story Telling - 1971″
• An old hand massager that plugs into the wall, called the “Stim-U-Lax“
• 14 episodes of Star Trek, the original series, on beta cassette, for some as of yet unknown project
• Some metal thing, mainly for the mesh covering it

And thats that. All told it was around $150 in stuff, not to mention we went to eat at Osaka, quite possibly some of the finest sushi I’ve had in this area. That was another $75 including tip. But man, it was worth it. The California Rolls were to die for, and the Hibachi steak was perfect.